


birds of joy and sorrow

by playmaker



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Abandonment, Affairs, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Explicit Sexual Content, Folklore, Historical Fantasy, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Magic, Major Character Undeath, Marriage, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi, Mythology - Freeform, Not Happy, Out of Character, Past Abuse, Platonic Kissing, Platonic Romance, Polyamory, Rape/Non-con Elements, Revolution, Russian Literature, Russian Mythology, Slow Burn, Sort Of, Unconventional Relationship, Unrequited Love, Violence, War, a bit - Freeform, bc andrew has Emotion, idk what to tell you, the slowest burn, this is a mess, this isnt happy!!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 23:52:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13088076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/playmaker/pseuds/playmaker
Summary: Nathaniel sank to his knees, his long coat spreading across the floor like a pool of blood. He pressed his forehead to Andrew’s.“What about the war?”“The war is going badly.”





	birds of joy and sorrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now HERE'S a project if I ever had one. Some of you might sense familiarity in the summary, but most of you won't. This is an aftg deathless au! I won't be continuing this until a bit into the new year, as I'll be mainly focusing on my other fics, but here's a prologue to give you a taste.  
> -  
> some scenes and dialogue will be lifted directly from either book, of which i own neither. the prologue is almost entirely lifted from deathless, so creds to cat valente for that!

Woodsmoke hung heavy and golden on the shorn wheat, the earth bristling with whispering breeze. The apple trees had long ago been stripped for kindling; the cherry roots long since dug up and boiled into meal. The sky sagged cold and wan, coughing spatters of quiet sunlight onto the grey and empty farms. Times were hard, as they always were. 

The birds had gone, arrows flung forth in invisible skirmishes, always south, always away. Yet three skinny, molting creatures clapped a withered pear branch in their claws, peering down with eyes like rosary beads: a gold-speckled plover, a sharp-billed shrike, and a bony, black-faced rook clutched the greenbark trunk. The wind picked up, carrying with it the scent of clover growing through the roof, rust, and old, dry marrow.

A boy stood sniffling, snot and tears dripping down his chin. He tried to knuckle it away, rubbing his nose red and scratching his belly with the other scuffed-up hand. His hair was colorless, his age vague, though no fuzz showed on his face, no squareness set his jaw, and his ribs would have been narrow if they had meat on them. His eyes drooped, too tired to squint in the autumnal light. The sun slashed through his pupils, stirring shadows there.

"Comrade Tkachuk!" A young man's voice cut through the brisk, ashy wind like silver scissors. "You have been accused of desertion, gross cowardice in the face of the enemy. Do you deny this?"

The boy stared at the officer and his polished tribunal bench, dragged from a truck into this wasted field for the purpose of punishing him, as though the army were a terribly stern mother, and he a child who had not come when she called.

"On the eighteenth of June," continued the staff sergeant, his pen scratching roughly against his notepad like a bird in the dust, "did you report for service when the Lieutenant-General assigned to this village opened his books so that all might know glory on earth through the gift of their bodies to the People?"

"N-no..." mumbled the boy, his voice thick and slurred, an illiterate voice, a field hand's lazy vowels. The officer's nose wrinkled in distaste.

"Why not?" he barked, the buttons on his olive uniform blinking like eyes in the sun.

"I... I'm only eleven, sir." The sergeant frowned, but did not open his arms to the boy, did not gather him up or smoother his hair or feed him bread. The boy hurried on. "And I got this bad leg. Broke when I were six. I... I falled out of a cherry tree. The man come with the big book, and I run an' hid with the pigs. Don't want t'be in the army. Wouldn't be no good for a soldier anyhow."

The staff sergeant gaze sharpened itself on the boy's fumbling speech. "The service of you body is not yours to give as you please. It belongs to the People and you have stolen from us by means of your weakness." A wicked smile found itself a home on the sergeant face as he continued. "However, the People are not unkind. Just as you chose to hide among pigs rather than serve among lions, you may now choose your reprimand: execution by firing squad, which is no more than you deserve, or service in a penalty battalion."

The boy stared, his eyes glassy and mute.

"That will be the front lines," clarified the staff sergeant. The rook ruffled her feathers; the shrike clacked her beak. The plover called, mournful and high. A wind kicked at the grasses, then, sudden and brief, neither warm nor sweet. The senior officer's thick, russet hair was combed flat, only a single curl broken free near his left ear. His stare was hard and tired. "You probably won't survive. But you might. You're small; we all were, once. You could be missed in the ranks. It has been known to happen."

The staff sergeant looked bored. He made a note on his pad. "Comrade, what is it you want?"

The boy said nothing for a moment, his gaze moving between the officer's ice-blue eyes and the pen tapping against notepad, seeking mercy like a boar snuffling for mushrooms in the loam. Finding nothing, he simply started to cry: thin, dry, starved tears cutting through the dirt on his face. His little chest heaved jerkily; his shoulders shook as though snow was already falling. He rubbed his nose furiously on a bare arm. Blood showed pinkish in the mucus. 

"I want t'go  _home,_ " he sobbed.

The plover shrieked as though struck. The shrike hid her face. The rook could not bear witness— she opened her black wings to the air.

Major-General Nathaniel Wesninski stood impassively and watched the child weep. He tapped his pen impatiently.

"Go," Wesninski whispered. "Run. Don't look behind you."

The boy looked at him dumbly.

" _Run,_ boy," the major-general whispered.

The boy ran. Flecks of dead earth flew up behind him. The wind caught them, and carried them away towards the sea.

Nathaniel Wesninski watched him go and sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> like i said, this is just a prologue (almost entirely lifted from deathless), and i wont get into actual plot until the new year.  
> when i get into the actual chapters, there will be FAR less direct lifts, and far more following the basic plot but with.. my own writing.. it just happened to work out better by lifting for the prologue/sake of set-up.  
> all this is is a small preview for a big 2018 project, so let me know what you think/if you want to see where this will go. until then, see you in january for an update!


End file.
